Biography

Tim Jackson is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). His vision for CUSP builds on thirty years of multi-disciplinary research on sustainability and decades of policy experience, in particular his work as Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission. Tim is the author of Prosperity Without Growth, recently published in a substantially revised and updated 2nd edition. He is also an award-winning playwright with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.

Research

From 2013 to January 2017, Tim was ESRC Professorial Research Fellow on Prosperity and Sustainability in the Green Economy (PASSAGE). From 2010 to 2014, he was Director of the Sustainable Lifestyles Research Group, a multi-institution research group funded by the UK Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, ESRC and the Scottish Government. From 2006 to 2011 he was Director of the ESRC Research group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE). From 2003 to 2005, he held a Professorial Research Fellowship on the social psychology of sustainable consumption and from 1995 to 2000 he held an EPSRC fellowship on the Thermodynamics of Clean Technologies. During five years at the Stockholm Environment Institute in the early 1990s, he pioneered the concept of preventative environmental management outlined in his 1996 book Material Concerns – pollution profit and quality of life.

Since 2010, Tim has been engaged in an ambitious collaborative project to build a new ecological macroeconomics. He and Prof Peter Victor from York University, Canada are developing the conceptual basis for an economy in which stability no longer depends on relentless consumption growth.

Advisor

Tim has served in an advisory capacity for numerous Government departments, Intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations, private sector companies, and delivery agencies. From 2004 to 2011, Tim was Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), where he led the Commission’s work on redefining prosperity, sat on the UK Government’s Sustainable Consumption Roundtable and contributed to the UK’s 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy. His work for the SDC culminated in the publication of his groundbreaking book Prosperity without Growthwhich has subsequently been translated into 17 foreign languages. A substantially revised second edition has been published recently.

Playwriting

Tim’s first love was playwriting and he sold his first radio play to the BBC while he was still a student. Since then he has achieved numerous radio writing credits for the Radio 4, Radio 3 and BBC World and won several prizes and awards for his work. His plays includes love stories, historical dramas, and a 30 episode environmental thriller. Through drama Tim has helped bring scientific controversies to a wider audience. He has also explored the life and work of scientists, artists, musicians and writers.